Space Jail, Sector 119
Nash definitely overdid himself last night. In space, whiskey tasted more like a Halls lozenge splashed by semen that had seeped through a tear in one of those musky, and awful white hospital gowns that show the ass hanging out. The numbing feeling was still present though, so every few moons Nash had to up the ante just to get a good buzz going. It wasn’t advisable, however, because ever since he’d been locked up for pushing some disagreeable tourists out the bay door of the ship in a drunken rage his body had been equipped with an electrifying alarm clock. At one time he had been one of the first appointed wardens of this stinkpot of a ship. Now, just like clockwork every time at seven o’clock, If Nash hadn’t vacated his cot on time, an electric shock embedded in his circulatory system would be adminstered throughout his entire body. The process had begun to happen this morning; starting from his trembling toes, the waves of electricity began to pulsate, growing with a feverish intensity as it spread up into his groin area, tingling his shell-shocked berries that rattled together like hammered glockenspiels. Nash rolled awkwardly out of bed, and crawled the length of the room, leaving little puddles of piss here and there, to the far right corner of his drab flat, swearing the whole way about his wounded privates.
“It’s so...fucking painful...I can still smell...my balls cooking...”
The wall screen had switched itself on, and a fit looking arrogant face was staring back at him with a challenging dip of the eyebrow. The instructor’s whole face was riddled with smirky asinine attitude, and filled the entire length of Nash's screen. Nash could get a glimpse of a pimple starting to develop near the corners of the instructor's left eye. The twenty something year old teacher had a bandanna wrapped around his head, and a plastic looking goatee. The standard oxygen tank that everyone was wearing on this ship was grafted to the instructors ribs, but Nash didn’t get a glimpse of this until the camera panned out in an effort to frame his whole body for demonstrational purposes. Behind the instructor was the United Planetary Flag that showed all four recently united planets connected by a flowing violet ribbon.
“Alright, convict #2357-89-0006, are you ready for your daily sixty minute workout? It’s per government regulations, and there’s really no excuse I can think of that would exclude you from today’s activities, so I’m just going to proceed if that’s ok with you. Let’s get started. Now I want you to squat down in the position you would take if you were to evacuate your bowels. Convict #2357-89-0006?...Convict #2357-89-0006???...Are you there???...We really have to get moving...”
Nash was busy retching his lungs out into the nearby toilet bowl, and at the moment he couldn’t be bothered. After ridding himself of the internal sickness, he stumbled towards a hanging towel device that he buried his whole head in. Nash then pressed a grey button, and let the draping towel completely immerse his damp skin, as the piping hot gusts of air rose up from the floorboards. Behind the curtain of towel, tiny robotic fingers probed and massaged his face. Exiting the machine, Nash stared up into the shaving mirror to his right that was fixed into his wall, and searched the pits of his long face for outcropping spurts of hair. Finding a bit of scruff with wandering fingers, Nash yanked his cell off of it's pedestal, and enacted the Swiss Army Phone ap that swiftly transformed his phone into a electric razor. He ran the razor over his face while the wall screen behind him continued to demand his attention. Suddenly, the mirror that Nash was gazing into began to grow foggy and dark like a storm cloud. Nash sighed, as the nebulous mirror swiftly revealed his excercise instructor again who looked a bit more agitated then before.
"Convict #2357-89-0006!...Have you been taking proper care of yourself?...It doesn't look like it. You look like a dog's chew toy, or one of those pranks from the Earth world where children would light bags of fecal matter on their neighbors lawn, and run away. Perhaps you haven't been reading the required literature of this galaxy? 'Downloading a Galaxy Required book a day keeps the cobwebs away.' Remember Apple guru Steve Jobs proclaimed that recently from his newly erected cryogenic speakers."
"Yes...your probably right...Right you are, and I'll be right as rain as soon as I can have a swig of boxed water, and a few GBD pills to give me that extra edge I need. I just need a few more minutes to freshen up."
"Ahem...um...don't you think your forgetting something?..."
"Oh, yes of course..."
Nash positioned himself right in the center of the mirror so that the camera could catch his good profile. He presented his cheesiest, most toothy grin, as he began his daily required Advert Diary. The script was already on the screen waiting for him to rattle it off.
"Galaxia, Galaxy Required Reading for the Incarcerated. Who needs the time to read with our patented designed system that slips in the ears, adhering to the inside of the ear-lobe until our precious messages are acknowledged? Galaxy Required Reading by Galaxia. The future of information."
As if it were a prize to Nash for completing the ad, a rectangle-shaped boxed water sprung out of his wall cubby, along the left edges of his shaving mirror/screen with the white screwable cap pointed towards him. Soon after, a platter with two cream colored capsules arose from the tiled table right in front of him. Nash washed the pills down with water, and deposited the bottle in the recycle chute with the red circle on it, to the left of the table. The chute made a loud whoosing noise, as Nash wandered back into the livingroom on a hunt for his worker's badge. They wouldn't let him back on the site this time if he didn't find that fucking thing. He'd probably get another demerit too, which would mean another night cooped up in this rat hole again. Snaking headphones leapt out of the wall as if anticipating him to download a book, as Nash ducked from them, and scooped up his badge from the floating couch. He headed towards the door that lead him to the endless lines of busy people outside his room.
Sector 119 was the work site on one of the moons nearest to the ship that all the prisoners worked their tails off at, until the electric lights embedded in the canvas that shielded the workers from debris began to dim, signalling the end of another workday. This day was far from over however, and Convict #4788-90-1111, or Hunter, as Nash knew him, was already starting to dick off and make jokes while he pretended to look busy with the pick axe and the wheelbarrow. Nash usually appreciated Hunter's lust for finding a bit of fun in everything, but right now didn't seem like the right time. Spy Droids were hiding everywhere, sometimes disguised as yellowish spiders at their feet, and other times peering through cracks in the canvas. Nash could have been just being paranoid, but he elbowed Hunter in the gut anyway, and tried all he could to get him back on task, which was a task in itself.
"The fuck's wrong with you, Nash? Nobody cares if we half-ass it. In fact, they've grown to expect it from inferior oxygen-breathers like ourselves. Fuck them, anyway! I need a drink."
Hunter dipped one of the dangling tubes streaming downward from his helmet into a vial that he'd produced from a hidden compartment in his pocket. He took a big gulp just as a alarm went off somewhere and startled him. In a flash, he had plugged up the vial and hid it back in the folds of fabric in his outfit.
"Always behind the eightball, eh Hunt?"
Though the scenario had seemed very risky, and tedious, Nash now wished more then anything that he'd have asked for a drink as well. He looked back at the extensive excavation job that the crew had been working on the last month and wondered what the fuck they'd really been doing. They were standing on a site twice the size of a football field on earth. There were dig spots all around them, as if they were crazed dogs digging up a forgotten bone. Noone ever explained anything to them, yet they all recieved a check for sixty points every week towards provisions and the ship's two bars that were on the ship. Nash wished he wouldn't have even thought about those bars because now it would encompass the rest of his agonizing day of back bending, and lifting. Beer, beer, beer...he'd sell his soul for a glass of hot beer. Striking the flinty surface with his pick axe, Nash continued to imagine the brown liquid with the charateristic foamy top that often obscured the beer's contents. Nash stared into the beer in his mind, until the foam began to disipate and reveal a human face. It was Phoebe's face. A girl he had sworn to forget, though he was having a hell of a time doing so. Digging further into his designated dig spot, Nash tried to free his mind from Phoebe's exotic, and tan complexion, as her haunting image winked at him before vanishing. He tried to think about the bar experience afterwards with Hunter. His aching mind kept wandering back to the job, however, with the unanswered question of why they were digging these pits hovering over his head like a menacing Droid. At this particular instance, a Droid was indeed hanging over him, and began shrieking it's high pitched wail signalling that a prisoner had gone off course and gotten too wistful. 48 volts of electricity surged through Nash's body, and woke him out of his trance.
The shock lasted only a minute but it proved it's irritating point. Nash didn't slack from the task until the shrieking whistle sounded at the end of the day, finally alerting the workers that their work was done. Nash and Hunter shared a relieved look, abandoned their tools, and docked the ship along with a hundred or so other prisoners. The remaining three hours before sleep that remained were there's to do with how they deemed fit. Nash could feel the fleeting sensation of freedom rushing through his bloodstream as he swam with the crowds of people towards the recreation rooms that awaited them.
(To be continued...)
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